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Saturday, January 26, 2013

Re: Bring Back Nigeria’s Teachers’ Colleges!

I
am glad that my last week’s article with the above title elicited the kind of
reactions it did. I have received emails and Facebook messages from people who
are concerned about the neglect of elementary education pedagogy in Nigeria and
the long-term consequences this could have for the country. Of the sample
responses reproduced here, I find the first one, written by a seasoned
educationist and international consultant on elementary and secondary education,
the most enlightening and informative. It fills me with hope that there may be
some light at the end of the tunnel.

I have been reading your columns in Weekly Trust and Sunday Trust newspapers with keen
interest, especially when I am in Abuja for my consultancy services. I
read your Weekly Trust column of 19th
January and feel I should share my experience and update you on the
current trend and development on Teacher Education Reform.

Many have advocated for a similar call
in the past but educationists have been cracking their brains on a way forward.
Developed countries have faced similar challenges in the development of a sound
educational system that caters to the needs of a large percentage of their
children. Kwara State, in collaboration with the National Commission for
Colleges of Education (NCCE), has examined the issue and a new curriculum has
been developed that is implemented at the two colleges of education in Kwara
State. Other colleges in the country will start to implement it when the Federal
Government directs them to do so.

The new NCCE curriculum will henceforth
prepare specialist teachers for Early Childhood, Primary and Junior
Secondary Education in addition to Adult, Non-Formal and Special Needs
Teachers, although the latter is being reconsidered in the
light of Inclusive Education. It may interest you to know that the admission
requirements to colleges of education have also been upgraded to five
credits, including English and Mathematics. This is to control the risk of
garbage in, garbage out.

It may also interest you to know
that in developed nations like the U.S and the United Kingdom you must have a
first degree, plus additional teacher professional qualification, before you
are considered into the teaching profession. In nations like Japan and Korea,
you must be a first-class degree holder before you can be employed to teach at
the primary level. Nigeria is a nation with many multifaceted problems.
Excellent plans and policies are developed in paper but the implementation is
always a problem.

Attached is a document for your
perusal only. I hope the document will be officially published this year for
implementation. However, I may remind you that there are many challenges in the
education sector. For instance, the new NCE curriculum met with a serious
resistance from Staff Unions of Colleges of Education. In the new curriculum, subjects
not taught at the Basic Education level were removed. The Unions saw it as
a way to lay off their colleagues from service. (Subjects like History,
Political Science, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Geography, etc. were not
included).

I am currently a National Consultant
on Institutional Development with the Education Sector Support Programme
in Nigeria, a DFID-funded programe to improve Nigerian Educational system by
the U.K. Government. I am hopeful that things will change for better if the new
NCE curriculum is implemented with sincerity.

Alhaji
Ibrahim Ibn Woru, Ilorin

You have hit the nail squarely on
the head once again. It is as you put it. Phasing out teachers' colleges by the
military policy makers, is indeed, the most thoughtless and toxic educational
policy change, amongst so many others in Nigeria's history, due to its apparent
negative chain effects—drop in educational standards, lack of adequate
preparation of secondary school students, which leads to the production of
half-baked graduates, which in turn results in the production of a legion of
'certified' uneducated workers. This is all largely because good primary education
has been jettisoned by our elite at the top. I am sorry for all of us.

I am a constant reader of your
highly enlightening and rich columns. Like the meaning of your name, you truly
separate the truth from falsehood! More power to your elbows.

You have said it all. If we are to
recall and reflect back, most of the intellectuals we have at present in
Nigeria were molded by those teachers that had Grade II teacher education
training. What you have rightly said is a must for a solution to our
educational crises.

Abdulkadir
Abubakar Auyo, Kaduna

Nice piece. But I think that the
decay of educational standards in Northern Nigerian can be attributed to the
lack of coherent approach in policy formulation as well as paucity of funds to
the educational sector rather than just the abrogation of Teachers' Colleges.

Aliyu
Bashir Bauchi, Bauchi

Yes, I really can't help but to
agree with you. It is now left for the government, particularly those of the
northern states to act quickly so as to reverse this ugly trend.

Abubakar
Algwallary, Kano

You have hit the nail on the head
and your suggestions are quite OK. What baffles me is that ministers of
education in Nigeria, over the time, have been educationists.

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About Me

Dr. Farooq Kperogi is a professor, journalist, newspaper columnist, author, and blogger based in Greater Atlanta, USA. He received his Ph.D. in communication from Georgia State University's Department of Communication where he taught journalism for 5 years and won the top Ph.D. student prize called the "Outstanding Academic Achievement in Graduate Studies Award." He earned his Master of Science degree in communication (with a minor in English) from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and won the Outstanding Master's Student in Communication Award.

He earned his B.A. in Mass Communication (with minors in English and Political Science) from Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria, where he won the Nigerian Television Authority Prize for the Best Graduating Student.

Dr. Kperogi worked as a reporter and news editor, as a researcher/speech writer at the (Nigerian) President's office, and as a journalism lecturer at Kaduna Polytechnic and Ahmadu Bello University before relocating to the United States.

He was the Managing Editor of the Atlanta Review of Journalism History, a refereed academic journal. He was also Associate Director of Research at Georgia State University's Center for International Media Education (CIME).

He is currently an Associate Professor of Journalism and Emerging Media at the School of Communication and Media, Kennesaw State University, Georgia's fastest-growing and third largest university. (Kennesaw is a suburb of Atlanta). He also writes two weekly newspaper columns: "Notes From Atlanta" in the Abuja-based DailyTrust on Saturday (formerly Weekly Trust) and "Politics of Grammar" in the DailyTrust on Sunday (formerly Sunday Trust).

In April 2014 Dr. Kperogi was honored as the Outstanding Alumnus of the University of Louisiana's Department of Communication. His research has also won international awards, such as the 2016 Top-Rated Research Paper Award at the 17th Symposium on Online Journalism at the University of Texas, Austin, USA.